


After The Battle

by the north has risen (inwhispersandscreams)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:13:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inwhispersandscreams/pseuds/the%20north%20has%20risen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She dances as well as she wields an axe, and that, Robb thinks, is quite a thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After The Battle

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta-ed, so any mistakes are mine. Enjoy!

She dances as well as she wields an axe, and that, Robb thinks, is quite a thing.

In her, he sees his two sisters balanced – Arya’s ferocity, the warrior with eyes that see all and miss nothing, and the grace of Sansa as she danced with Jeyne Poole in Winterfell. But yet, Dacey is different, and her long smooth gait is unlike Sansa’s, with subtle movements that he cannot describe but stir a feeling in his gut that cannot be ignored, though he wished it might, and on the battlefield, the strokes of her axe are not the wild swings that Arya uses when she had managed to find herself a wooden sword to play with, but are fluid instead, as if the axe is nothing more than an extension of her very body. She is the first to laugh that she is no lady, and the first to admit that she is no warrior, but Robb finds her to be both, an impossible mix that she carries off with the same grace that she uses to dance.

The battle has been won, though he feels none of the same jubilation as the rest of his men. While they dance, Robb sits, like some green boy yet untested and mettle unproved. Around him, they tell him of his courage, and how the Lannisters shall know him to be a force to be reckoned with, but he hears little of it. The blood spilt in the battle seems to still be on his clothes, and he hasn’t the stomach in him to feast and laugh as the rest of them. Do none of them know the death that they reaped that day, or how much blood flowed onto the ground? It seems to be all that Robb can see, and all he can remember. When he sleeps tonight, he is sure that he will see the battleground again in his dream, and all the men that were cut down. _It was for Father_ , he tells himself as he watches his men – _his_ – grow rowdy with laughter and ale. _For Father, and my sisters held captive at Kings Landing. It was to win them back_.

How many women would be waiting for their husbands to return to them, or mothers waiting for their sons? It is an unwelcome thought that he has no wishes to entertain, but it stumbles through his mind and leaves no stone unturned. It demands to be heard, and Robb hears it, whispering in his ear. In his quest to free his sisters, he has killed brothers and sons, all for only being born under the liege of a Southron lord, and following the Lannisters into war. It is a hard thought to stomach, but it is easier to handle than the rumours that follow his father’s demise. His head was nestled on a pike they said, and ravens feasted at the dead skin and pulled at the lips that had once smiled in approval towards the young Robb Stark. The wintery eyes of the Stark line, they said, were long gone, and none of the decencies had been followed. And his sisters were there, among such things. Had they seen their father’s body, or worse, his head as it stood on the walls of the Red Keep? Had they seen the sweep of steel that had ended their father’s life?

“Will you dance, my lord?”

Her voice is bright, and it breaks through the melancholy of his thoughts. He looks up and sees her there, tall and lean, eyes bright and face covered by a smile that feels out of place in his current mood. She is too happy after all that has occurred, and it is strange for a Northern to be so happy. Winterfell had been happy, in its own manner, but it was a sombre place, serious and restrained. It was not the Red Keep where King Robert had hosted tournaments by the dozen and feasts by the hundred. The Northmen were grim folk the Southerns said, but there is nothing grim about Dacey Mormont’s expression. Just as all the rest of his men, she is as happy as them, not sign of a woman’s tender heart weeping over blood spilt like it was said in Sansa’s beloved songs. Perhaps she is no lady after all.

He shakes his head. “No, I… I…” Words fail, and he is like a green boy yet again. _King of the North_ , they call him, but he feels like little more than a child. His eyes turn away from her and back to his cup, watching over the rest of his men on his empty table. His mother had long since retired, but he stays awake, afraid of what will greet him in his sleep.

“The first night is always the worst,” she says, as she draws a chair and sits by him. His eyes flick to her, but she is looking forward, a small glimmer of her smile remaining. “Most men seek a woman after they’ve tasted their first blood. Seek to drive the blood from their mind, but you remember. In time, you learn to remember other things.”

He doesn’t wish to show that she has guessed right. He is a king now, and he must not act like a child. If he scares at dreams, he is a child, afraid of grumpkins and giants and the creatures from Nan’s stories. Beside him, Grey Wind rises and pads to Dacey’s side, sniffing at her. He is ready to call the direwolf back to his side, but there is no need; his wolf regards Dacey with amber eyes, and she regards him back, making no move as the direwolf sniffs at her, and then Grey Wind returns to Robb’s side. If Dacey felt fear at the presence of the wolf, she says none of it, and shows less. She is a hard woman to frighten, and he wonders how it came to be that way, how she became so very different from Sansa. Like his sisters, Dacey is a lady, and like he was during his father’s life, she is heir apparent to her family’s holdings, yet she sings no sweet songs and swings an axe with the confidence to rival any man’s. And it is that question that tumbles from his mouth. “Where did you learn to fight?”

Dacey ponders the question for a moment, and then speaks, her voice clear in the night. “Bear Island is attacked often by the raiders of the Isle of Pyke, and the women learnt quickly that men do not always return from such skirmishes. A woman on Bear Island takes up a weapon to defend her home. That is why I learnt, and the where was at our home, and I have explained the why. The when though, I find, is growing more blurry,” she admits, the smile once more growing on her face. “It seems I have always had an axe in hand, though I doubt my mother would have allowed me such a toy as a child.”

“And your first battle?” He can’t help the words that pour from his mouth as soon as she lapses back into silence. With her, there is no sense of expectation, and yet no disapproval. She is no warrior, telling him to drink his ale and laugh, that a good thing was done that day, and she is no woman, weeping over the lost men. She is a curious mix of both, and it is in her company that he finds himself able to think of other matters.

“Sixteen. The raiders had come early that year,” she says the words slowly, _carefully_ , remembering the encounter within her mind. For a moment, he wishes he could read her thoughts and see the memory for herself, so that he might know if she felt the same tremors in herself that he had when she had realised that this was no longer a bout in the courtyard of her home, but _real_ battle, where lives were lost and blood was shed. “They attacked the Eastern coast of the island, rather than the North where the men were deployed. I remember telling my mother that I had to go, _had_ to fight – I was of age, and if I was of an age to be wed, then I was of an age to fight and to die. So I found my mail, and rode east with the force of men that were summoned before the day was out, and went to battle.

“There was blood, lots of it. Men screamed too, and the waves dragged the bodies out to sea. To their Drowned God I suppose.” Her voice was thoughtful and her hand reached out for a cup of ale. She did not drink from it, but ran her fingers along the side of the cup, her eyes distant and faraway. “It was a small force of raiders only, meant to surprise and then leave quickly. But the men had decided to take their pleasures amongst other such things, and had not left quickly enough. A few managed to return to their boats, but many died.” She paused, and glanced at his face, eyes solemn. It occurred to him suddenly that she may have been no lady, but she was a woman, full grown and blooded, and beneath her smile was a strength that could not be reckoned with. “We fended them off, and returned home. The men sang praises of me – well, _spoke_. A warrior’s singing is never pleasant to hear, I assure you – but my mother knew better. She took me inside and took off my armour, and I promptly vomited on the floor. All she told me was that it is not a thing to be ashamed of, to be a woman and a warrior, and to shake after battle was not to be thought of as weakness. _Today_ , she told me, _you took blood. Men have died. But more would have died if the Mormonts of Bear Island let the raiders take the coast. Women would have been raped and taken as salt wives or slaves. Do not be ashamed to be a bear, and do not be ashamed of the reality of what it means._ ”

There was silence then, and Robb judged her story finished, though it had the feel of being only half done. How had she become this woman then, who danced and laughed at the end of the battle? How did one change into a warrior, if they shook and vomited after tasting first blood? “Did you dream of it that night?”

“Certainly. And many nights after,” Dacey replied. “I took a man the first night, as my mother suggested to me later, and still the dreams came. For days, I thought I could taste the blood in my meals. But then I saw spring come to the island, and my sisters chase each other in the Godswood, and the dreams stopped. As a warrior, you must learn to take life as needed, but put those feelings away and take pleasure where you can. Else, it will drive you mad, my lord. We do a duty, not a pleasure. Do not be afraid of doing your duty, or of disliking the grim reality of it. Once you accept that my lord, it _does_ become easier. You learn to put the blood behind, and see what you have fought for. For North men to laugh and serve their rightful liege lord, for a free North.” She rose then, cup still in her hand, nodding her head respectfully towards him. Robb blinked, still not yet used to the shows of deference given to him. _I am King now. King of the North_. “I’ll see you on the morrow, my lord. For now, I must retire, if I have your permission?”

He nodded, and watched her walk away, returning to her mother, the two she-bears of the North with solemn eyes.

 

The dawn was grey and pale, the light weak, when Robb took to the Godswood near the camp. Like his father before him, he sat by the Hearttree and polished his sword, Grey Wind beside him, the two silent in the morning chill. His mother found him there, but said nothing.

“I want Dacey Mormont on my kingsguard,” he told her as the strip of cloth once more brushed the length of his steel. The blade seemed to ring in the silence of the morning. “She has proven herself to be true, loyal, and her family is trusted among my liege lords. She and her family came to our cause swiftly, and I want to see it done.”

His mother nodded.

Maybe Dacey was no lady, and no warrior, but now she was to be one of his sworn swords, and that, Robb thought, was a title that fitted her much more than either.


End file.
